Posts from the “Faith-Based” Category

I run a youth development program with Urban Seed, a Christian organisation. A secular hiphop youth program wanted to use our church hall for weekly dance sessions. I let them. I then built a relationship with the main youth worker by coming along to his . I listened to his story, to his values, and decided there was much overlap with my values.

I’ve been in plenty of youth ministry prayer times, and have led them myself, where we have prayed passionately for this or that young person, for strength for ourselves, for God to intervene. This is a valid form of prayer. But all too easily it becomes a way of us trying to persuade God to do what we think should happen. It’s fakery – we are pretending that we know what is the Godly thing to do, and if we just pray hard enough, God will join up to our campaign.

Maybe it’s simply the circles I move in, or the poverty of my own faith, but I find myself thinking much less about love these days. How to love others, the love of Jesus towards the poor and desolate, how God’s love changes us. These are key Christian questions, yet I find myself realising the lack of love in my thoughts and conversation. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. In my work, I speak with lots of Christians, and when I ask them what they are aiming to do in their work, rarely do people say anything that approximates to “loving people”. Even simply typing the words seems naff. But as a young(er) adult, I was obsessed with love; not surprising, you…